President Obama: First lady ‘wary’ of strike

First Lady Michelle Obama is among the growing number of Americans “wary” of military action in Syria, President Barack Obama said Monday.

“I am taking this vote in Congress and what the American people are saying very seriously, because if you ask somebody, you know, I read polls like everybody else. And if you ask somebody, if you ask Michelle, ‘do we want to be involved in another war?’ the answer is no,” Obama said in an interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie.

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Obama's TV round-robin

Obama, who has been struggling to gain public support since announcing he would seek congressional authorization for an airstrike in Syria invoked his own family’s war weariness again during an interview on Monday with PBS’s “Newshour.” The first lady has not spoken publicly about the issue of Syria herself.

“You know, if you – if you talk to my own family members, or Michelle’s, you know, they’re very wary and suspicious of any action,” Obama said who also acknowledged that he is “not sure” he will get a majority of American’s support.

“I’m not sure that we’re ever going to get a majority of the American people, after over a decade of war, after what happened in Iraq, to say that any military action, particularly in the Middle East, makes sense in the absence of some direct threat or attack against us. And that’s understandable,” Obama said.

These interviews, two of six sit-down interviews that Obama gave to the network, come ahead of the president’s public address Tuesday in which he will seek to explain the U.S. strategy in the region whether an airsstrike or a possible agreement under which Syria would surrender its chemical weapons to international control.